After reading this article (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050930/ap_on_hi_te/internet_control) entitled "EU Wants Shared Control of Internet," my first reaction was "Why not? It is a global resource. Should it not be run by more than just one country?"

Then I started thinking more about it. What right does the EU -- or the UN for that matter -- have to take control of anything away from a country? This is especially compelling when the country -- the U.S. in this instance -- invented the thing.

I do not know enough about what control the U.S. has exactly, so I thought I would ask what members of this board think.

Please note that I am not interested in questions about why it is fair for the U.S. to run the thing -- that topic would no doubt degenerate into stereotypical America-bashing. I am asking on what basis it is ok for the EU or UN or any other body to take control away.

[ October 04, 2005, 16:21: Message edited by: Taluntain ]

I never knew the US was in control of the Internet, how is a nation in control of an international network of computers?

So far as I can tell it is because a private U.S. body (with veto power by the Department of Congress) has control over internet domains.

The US didn't invent the internet but it probably has some privileged position, even judging by the mere fact that every country uses some domain suffix, while almost no sites whatsoever use the .us suffix. As for the domains, well, that's just domain names. It's not like someone can cut you off the net.

@chev:
Didn't you hear? Al Gore invented the internet. :lol:

IIRC, the precursor to the internet was a massive communication network set up by one branch of the US Armed Forces (I don't remember which one). It used IP (internet protocol) and was initially meant for secure communications. They continued to expand on it, but the secret eventually got out. Some people realized the potential profitability, and ... tada! Worldwide access to THE NET. That's how I heard it, anyway.

I fail to understand over what exactly US has veto right over? Personally I did not get what the fuss was about in the entire article. It's not like Europeans are dependant on the US for their usage of the internet. On the other hand my knowledge about how internet works in practice is quite near zero so it would not be surprising if I missed the point of the entire article. :p

Yes, the Internet was originally a project of the Pentagon, which is how the U.S. gained control of Internet addressing in the first place.

The article mentions that that power now has security and economic implications for other countries, who fear that the U.S. could indeed cut them off. There is also concern that about allowing the use of non-English characters in domain names. (Although why that would be a problem eludes me.)

Thats the thing that pisses me off, not recognising fadas on letters. Take the fada of my name, and the the pronounciation is wrong. Unfortunately I cannot use this for a website address.

Er - still, how does the US control the internet? Beyond domain names, that is, as that doesn't really mean much. As far as I can see, it's not like they can shut down a server in Europe or where ever, so they don't really control anything...

Well, they use their space rays to control my brain sometimes when I am on the internets.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICANN

Basically, the problem is that ICANN is still largely under US government control, and that they have exclusive rights for assigning TLDs and some other important tasks connected with Internet domains. So they are in a privileged position AND potentially under control of the US government... which is problematic, since they could potentially pull the plug on any domain they would want to shut down for some reason, or prevent accessibility of any domain or domains with a certain suffix (at least in the US).

There are benefits to having a centralized body dealing with domains and DNS, but the downside is that there is no alternative and no one to complain to if ICANN under US government orders shuts down a domain. There's also the issue of base pricing on domain registrations and transfers which ICANN sets arbitrarily and despite overwhelming objection of everyone else - and no one can do anything about it.

So the question is really only how long it's fair for the US to have monopoly over these services. Eventually they'll have to let go anyway.

And what right would the EU or the UN have to take that control away?

Shouldn't the EU have control over "EU websites"?

St. James, the right based on the fact that the Internet is now global, and that since all the other countries besides the US have to build their own backbones, pay for their own servers, etc. - which then the US users also use - it is logical that they should also have some say in the most important decisions and the issues of control. If the US was paying for everything and developing everything on its own, it wouldn't be an issue. But that's not the case.

Also, no one is going to "take that control away". The control would logically be shared and decisions would be made democratically. So you don't have to worry about the UN or the EU taking control of everything. The point is to allow fair participation in the decision-making process.

Hmmm. That does make some sense. However, I question whether "have to build their own backbones" etc is the right language, strictly speaking.

If they want to have access to the internet, then they have to do those things. But they are not forced to do them. They could, in fact, start their own internet that does not have US authority over domains. But once they join to the regular internet it seems they agree to work with it the way it is.

I admit to being something of an "America first" person, and I am certain that I would be voicing the arguments you all make if I were not American.

But your arguments over basic fairness still do not seem sufficient. After all, basic fairness would dictate that everyone in the world vote in US elections because we have so much power over what goes on in the world. But we do not because of U.S. sovereignty. I think we can say ditto for the Internet.

Oh, and do you really want UN control over anything so vital to the world economy?

In practice, every country needs its own backbone if it wants to connect people to the Internet. Of course they are not forced to, but claiming they have a choice in the matter today is as silly as saying countries have a choice whether they'll build roads to connect them to other countries or not. There really is no choice here. You need them to get out, and others need them to get in. Even the worst kind of dictatorships have at least some roads connecting them to neighbouring countries.

Internet is a term which encompasses the whole world. Any other smaller network is not it, and can't connect or interface with it without using the same protocols, which it wouldn't, by your logic. You also forget that other countries didn't start using the Internet by force... it was opened up for all to use by the US.

Of course, thus far everyone has had to agree with the current state of control affairs. Or rather, even if they didn't, they had to accept it. But that isn't to say they can't argue about it now. Various countries of the EU have made huge contributions to the accessibility and development of the Internet and various protocols such as IRC over the years; and everyone is reaping the benefits of that, the people in the US included.

And please, not the UN bogeyman argument again... UN wouldn't have total control over anything even remotely connected to the US. It never has, and it never will. Even if the US opened up in this regard, it'd still most likely have the most influence. So, rationally, there is nothing to be concerned about. Considering the number of people in the US who fear the UN worse than the devil, you can be sure that it'd never be allowed to have more influence than any other body in the process.

Here is an analagous scenario to consider:

Imagine a small country, say Israel, develops a way to generate completely free electricity. Instead of keeping it for themselves, they decide to share it with the rest of the world. They build transmission stations, power lines, etc. Other countries take advantage of this free power to grow their economies. (Assume for the moment that no other country is able to duplicate the free power generation technology and Israel can not give it away for some good reason.)

Standards of living rise in countries that take advantage of the free power. They build transmission lines throughout their country and soon come to depend on it.

Does Israel then have to give up control?

It would not make much sense for Israel to cede control, would it? In fact, because Israel is hated by so much of the world, it could be downright dangerous to its own safety to give up control.

The same is true with the U.S. and the Internet. We invented it. We let other countries join it. They made investment in infrastructure to take advantage of it. Sometimes it helped us when others joined the Internet -- especially economies that were developed enough for significant trade -- and sometimes it did not.

Now it seems we have invented something that has benefitted the world, and instead of saying "thanks" and carrying on, the rest of the world wants us to give up what little control we have. And, like in the hypothetical case above, giving up control could be dangerous to our own security.

Even though I still don't fully understand what kind of control the US has over the internet (I tried to get into the wikipedia article but my knowledge in these things as I said is zero and so I did not understand that much of it) I don't think they are forced to share. However I don't see why EU has to put up with it, I mean it's not like we lack the knowledge to build up a similar system and it's not like we lack resources. I'm not sure why exactly EU is whining over the issue but instead of begging for a bone they should actually do something about it. But then as I have repeatedly said I have no idea how this would be practically done.

I don't support any moral monopoly over the internet for the US. They can't hold it just because they invented it. If others want to build their own system totally separate from the US system then they should be free to do so, and frankly I don't see what the US could do to stop it either.

St. James, you haven't been paying attention to what I wrote. I specifically pointed out that the US did not develop all the technology and the means to access it, and just let the world leech off of it. Every country had to build its own Internet access system, which was then linked to the existing ones. The US isn't doing or providing anything more (or less) for anyone than any other connected country. It's providing it for its own citizens, and that's it. All the other countries needed to build their own systems to connect to it. So your analogy is completely false. It's not like the US sent building crews and money and equipment to all the countries that wanted to connect to the Internet. It was more along the lines "it's there, it's open, so you can connect if you have the means to". And if anyone couldn't, that was their problem.

My roads analogy is much better in getting the right picture across. And it can be taken further. Imagine the Internet as asphalt, and let's say that the US invented it. Every country had its own means of paving the roads before asphalt came along. But since asphalt was so much better, everyone soon adopted it and started using it. In a matter of a couple of decades, it was the only sensible remaining means of road pavement. But imagine also, that the US has kept the means of preparing asphalt a secret from everyone. Only the US knows how to make it, so in essence, it holds complete control over everyone who wants to use asphalt.

What would the situation be like today if the inventor of asphalt was given exclusive rights to use it all over the world - indefinitely? First allowing everyone to use it to the point that everyone realizes they can't operate efficiently without it any more, then refusing to let anyone else make it on their own, requesting permission from the source for every stretch of paved road built anywhere on the planet...

Of course, asphalt was way easier for others to figure out and copy it so that part of the analogy is a bit off, but if you take for granted that the kind of asphalt made in the US and the kind everyone else could make wouldn't be compatible and the roads between countries couldn't connect because of it, you get exactly the possibility of a situation we're facing now.

Morgoroth, check this article (http://sympatico-msn-ca.com.com/Power+grab+could+split+the+Net/2010-1071_3-5886556.html?part=sympatico-msn-ca&tag=ca_home&subj=ns_5886556). It's a bit too melodramatic and US-centered, but it sums up the issue and possible problems well enough and in simple terms.

The same is true with the U.S. and the Internet. We invented it. We let other countries join it. They made investment in infrastructure to take advantage of it. Sometimes it helped us when others joined the Internet -- especially economies that were developed enough for significant trade -- and sometimes it did not.About all development at this stage was international (protocols etc.).

As for the whole situation, I think it is only fair. The internet is after all a publicly accessible worldwide system. They could at least move some of the core DNS servers.

Actually, St. James's analogy makes sense. And so does Tal's. The only problem with these analogies is that they describe a specific product that is being created and then used (and subsequently used up). Internet domains are more like parcels of land. Noone actually created it (noone mortal, for those of a religious mindset ;) ), what they did is discover it and lay rightful claim. The Internet would then be a entire world unto itself.

It's as if one country claimed the rights to a specific (colonizable) planet, and then gave out the land as they saw fit. Even doing it in a fair and impartial fashion would make many people's ire rise. The thought of a monopoly on an entire world invites abuse of power, whether or not it's actually happening.

So long as all the EU/UN want is a share of the responsibility, I say they should have it. But if they're going to make money selling domains, then there ought to be a one-time buy-in that would make that country a business partner (in Internet Domain Sales). Of course it'd have to be small enough that after a number of sold domains, it'd pay for itself, but large enough to befit the enormity of the Internet's invention.

Actually, my analogy specifically stated that other countries built their own infrastructure, but apparently you (Taluntain) did not read it very closely.

Your roads analogy is interesting for the inherit anti-capitalism of it. You are actually stating that someone does not have a right to their invention if it is really, really important to the rest of the world.

I must point out that some are saying that they must have a share in control of domain names for national security reasons. They fail to realize that America giving up control of domain names is therefore giving up national security.

Why would anyone expect America to do this? How is that fair at all?

Just to clarify... If America owns all the domain names, does that mean that they have ultimate control over government websites? If that's right, then there's quite a big national security risk. And how would giving up the government domains of other countries be a security risk for America?

And how is the internet American? They created the first one, but the internet itself is just computers connected together, and wasn't invented by any one person or group. The roads analogy is the best one I've seen; whoever built the first road doesn't control the worldwide road network.

Sorry if this is all garbage, but it seems like a ridiculous situation. Who would be stupid enough to let another country have ultimate control over its websites?

Felinoid, it's not exactly as you imagine it... the biggest problems here are the domains and who controls them. And domains are created (i.e. named) by the people who buy them, not the US. So it's not a matter of "being discovered". Only the domain suffixes are provided on a higher level.

St. James, I've read it carefully, but considering how vaguely you worded it, it could actually mean either thing. But "They build transmission stations, power lines, etc. Other countries take advantage of this free power to grow their economies." certainly implies that the builder was being taken advantage of. The problem is that you state this in the main paragraph, but say something completely opposite in the next one. So it's all very vague what you wanted to say.

Your roads analogy is interesting for the inherit anti-capitalism of it. You are actually stating that someone does not have a right to their invention if it is really, really important to the rest of the world.Putting words in my mouth again... Please note the word INDEFINITELY that I used in my post (not to mention a bunch of other points convenienty overlooked). Of course everyone should have the right to exploit their creation for their own gain for a set period of time. But copyright on everything expires in a few years or decades, depending on the product.

And we're talking copyright on a thing that someone actually invented as a complete product. As far as the Internet goes, the US can only take credit for providing the base. Many other countries have helped to make the Internet truly useful after that with their own developments and improvements. So in no way could the US put an all-encompassing claim on the Internet (this has been pointed out about a dozen times in this thread by now).

I must point out that some are saying that they must have a share in control of domain names for national security reasons. They fail to realize that America giving up control of domain names is therefore giving up national security.

Why would anyone expect America to do this? How is that fair at all?What national security reasons? What on earth are you going on about? It's not like the US is the only country with laws. Heck, if anything, it violates international law more than anyone else. But that's another topic entirely. We're talking about the EU here. We have criminal laws here too, you know. And despite this, the EU has no way of looking out for its own "national security" concerning the Internet. How is that fair?

To echo your questions: Why would anyone expect Europe to go along with this? How is that fair at all?

Edit:

Alavin, America doesn't own all domain names. It simply has the control to shut any one domain or a group of domains down if it so chooses. Or rather, make the domain unavailable for viewing to others.

The only thing America could claim as its own is the part of the Internet in the countries belonging to the United States. And if they walled themselves in, what do you think you'd get? The Internet? Hell, no. You'd get another America Online. And of much use that would be to you or anyone else. People in the US couldn't benefit from being able access the rest of the world online either. But St. James tries to make it sound like no one in the US cares about that. Hah, I'd like to see the uproar of business America if they suddenly found themselves confined to the borders of the US Internet. Not to mention everyone else frequenting websites outside the US borders.

[ October 06, 2005, 16:47: Message edited by: Taluntain ]

So in no way could the US put an all-encompassing claim on the Internet (this has been pointed out about a dozen times in this thread by now). Of course we can; we own the world. ;) By copyright law, though, a product must be finished before it can be copyrighted. So if the rest of the world helped with the finishing process, then they have every right to shared control, and I've got no problem with this at all. But the US as a whole will have a significant problem with giving up such an advantage, so all I can say is good luck with it.

Better share a ICANN today and save the trouble tomorrow. Better have more authorities in this matter just so that everything keeps moving. Even though it grits me to admit this, Taluntain has a good point in that flood of text...

I believe that currently ICANN is operating as an independent corporation. The problem I see is that allowing bureaucracies like the EU Gov't, US Gov't, and UN to all have a say in it could stifle the ability for the internet to advance technologically. Think about how difficult the roll out of IPv6 has been. If you put multiple bureaucracies over it major advances will become almost impossible IMO.

As far as I know it ain't acting as an independent corporations and even if it would it would be a monopoly and most countries have laws against monopolies. Personally I think Europe should do all they can to pull themselves free from the ICANN system, I don't think the US is going to give up nor have they any obligations to do so. EU can pretty much blame themselves for this situation if you ask me.

Great, another debate about monopolies. Didn't we do this a couple years ago?

Some industries just do not lend themselves to competition or having the gov't run them. California tried to eliminate the power company’s monopolies, and it turned into a total cluster. The gov't took over airport security and the costs tripled while security actually was worse.

Monopolies are fine as long as they are regulated, and mean regulated, not dominated. I won't enter the debate, but I think everyone here knows my opinion on the gov't trying to run industries.

Darkwolf, ICANN is only somewhat independent. The proper wording would be that it was made to appear independent (exactly because of all the complaints of its bias...). Technically, the US government could still easily pull the strings if and when it needed to. And there's really no telling that it doesn't. Also, you can hardly expect a US-based business staffed with Americans to be "independent". Even if they do their best, the US government could take over everything at a moment's notice if there was an issue of "national security", or any similar blanket excuse which basically gives them power to override laws mere mortals have to respect. Especially considering the current political climate in the US, it'd be naive to expect that it doesn't happen.

Not that there's anything to worry about here anyway... Until the US concedes, everything will keep going on as it has in the past. No one anywhere in the world is insane enough to attempt breaking off into their own local "Internet". The people would never stand for it. Not even countries like China have done that back when they still easily could (and frankly, it'd actually make some sense for them to do it, from the political perspective). But the fact that they didn't speaks volumes.

Well TCP/IP protocol was only invented by the MoD for the US purposes of secret and safe communication worldwide. This protocol was challenged by the ISO standard, and won. The www root is an invetion of CERN (http://public.web.cern.ch/Public/Welcome.html) . IANA is responsible for global address allocation and registration (meaning ip networks 192.167.0.0/16). And ICANN is not the only one responsible for domain names in reality globally so why should they only hold the root DNS and have their control? I can't see the reason why.
Unless of course you look for excuses in controlling the Internet, which is a :nono: intention, since it is supposed to be free. How can something be free and fair if it being controlled, or worse is being controlled by one nation only?
P.S. The backbone existed in all countries but the technology of internet was unknown and costly. By the word backbone is defined the physical infrastructure (the active equipment routers, switches plus the connections between them) and in a network especially is the core of it, and the connections that outstretch from the core towards the access layer. (Core - distribution - access -> users)

Tal,

You either missed or glossed over the main point of my post, that being: allowing multiple gov't bureaucracies to have control over ICANN would be a disaster in that the sheer bulk of the oversight would stifle any major innovation. The only reason I could see that anyone would want this would be if they didn't want the Internet to advance, and had no issue with it rapidly falling into obsolescence as it was replaced by a new network that would rise within the shell left from a gov't run internet.

If you look at nations that had government run telecommunications systems, with only a couple of very small exceptions (those being in small nations) their systems were basically equivalent to the US POTS systems of the 1950s to 1970s. These nations either had to hire private firms to come in and modernize or turn over their networks to private industry in order to be able to carry dial up speed data traffic, never mind considering anything like a T-1 or T-3. As an example of current development that is being created in the private sector that would only be taken on by the gov't after it was needed (if ever) is the further development of the lasers that send signals down fiber optic cables. Last year a partnership between MCI and several other smaller corporations from various subsectors within the telecom industry rolled out OC-256 level circuits. That is 12,000Mbps! Or you could measure that by stating that it is 172K simultaneous telephone calls! I am sorry, but gov'ts only reacts to what people demand, does not do a good job forecasting what people will want in the future, and is inherently risk adverse in spending for innovation.

I can see why other nations would not want something that has become as important as the Internet under the control of the US gov't, but adding additional bureaucracies to govern it, or transferring it to another body that is just as likely to be politically motivated is not the answer, IMO.

Darkwolf, no, I saw your point, but as I've mentioned it as one of the benefits of centralized control previously, I didn't think I needed to do so again. ;)

You're not getting any arguments from me that less bureaucracy is a good thing. But you argue that bureaucracy in this case would "stifle any major innovation". That's simply not the case. What bureaucracy would deal with would be standard procedures, like those with registering domains, which have been the same for years.

There's no innovation being made at ICANN or any other government-controlled bodies. Innovations come from people who don't have bureaucracy hovering over the heads. That's been the case in the past and will be in the future. So I think your fears are unfounded. When it comes to control, we're talking control of basic procedures which rarely change, nothing else.

As for your "government-run telecommunications systems" example, I'll have to take that as a generalization, I'm afraid. Your "small nations" exclusion is not really appropriate here - mostly every nation in Europe will be "small" compared to the US. Slovenia's had such a monopolyist system (and for a large part, still does), but we were among the first, if not the first, to offer UMTS in Europe, for example, and have always been on the cutting edge of all telecommunications technology... despite everything being run by a government monopoly.

Giving the US as a good example considering, for example, how messed up your mobile telecommunications situation is (compared to Europe and many other countries) is really more than a little ironic. Though I guess you could put it down to average Europeans being much more demanding than Americans when it comes to latest telecommunication/mobile technologies... We've always wanted the best, fast, cheap and right away. And, for the most part, we also got it... Everyone here can afford a mobile phone (actually, the average is more than one per person) and a broadband Internet connection. The only question is if it's available where you're located, but the coverage is expanding on a weekly basis. And it's all come from the monopolist telco basically, since they're the ones building the infrastructure, even though some private companies also use them.

Anyway, the point is to share control in such a way that it doesn't become too bogged down by bureucracy and that things still actually get done. Considering how long it's been taking for any changes to happen while everything is still under US control, I'm sure it's in everyone's interest to improve on that, not worsen the situation. Anything can be done if there's a will to do it.